go
OCEANA.
coal, cheap as it is, and excellent for all useful purposes, is fuliginous beyond any coal I have fallen in with, and on windless mornings, like that on which we arrived, a black cloud envelopes harbour and town. But it is seldom thus, and there is generally a breeze. Even the smoke itself means business, life, energy ; and along the shore for miles and miles rose the villas and plantations of the Melbourne magnates—suburban, unromantic, but all the more reminding one of England, and telling of wealth and enjoyment.
CHAPTER VII.
Landing at Melbourne. — First Impression of the City.—Sir Henry Loch,— Government House.—Party assembled there.—Agitation about New Guinea.— The Monroe Doctrine in the Pacific.—Melbourne Gardens.—Victorian Society. —The Premier.—Federation, local and imperial.—The Astronomer Royal.— The Observatory.—English Institutions reproduced.—Proposed Tour in the Colony.—Melbourne Amusements.—Music.—The Theatre.—Sunday at Melbourne.—Night at the Observatory.
We landed at our leisure at Williamstown, from which a railway train was to take us to the city. We were in no hurry, for the day was still early, and we had no plans, save to find an hotel in the course of it. A “nigger,” who must have weighed thirty stone, wheeled our luggage to the station in a hand cart. As at Adelaide, I was impressed by the good English and good manners of the station officials. There was an American smartness about them, but it was American with a difference. Something might be due to the climate. Manners soften of themselves where tempers are never ruffled by cold. The line makes a long circuit by the shore; we had ten miles to go. The fields were enclosed all the way with the Australian rails one hears riding men talk about—heavy timbers four feet and a half or five feet high. Clusters of wooden houses were sprinkled about, growing thicker as we advanced, and painted white to keep off the sun. Gardens and flowers were, as usual, universal. Melbourne station was, like other metropolitan stations in the world, vast, crowded, and unbeautiful. Again some ingenuity was needed to escape the newspaper people; we extricated ourselves only at last by a promise of future submission, and got away in a cab with our luggage. I